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ARSENAL SEASON ULTIMATUM … THIS IS THE END. FOR NOW…

The following is for ALL football fans especially the Gunners – A good number of Gunners have asked me as to why I haven’t done an Arsenal blog for the past few games. Well I’ll tell you why … The following 4 lines are what I wrote post Tottenham 5-2 win -“Such is the life of an Arsenal fan that you are sent up and down a rollercoaster through a season of football. We are now on the up, so let us hope that we stay uninjured. Get our injured back fit and training well. Plus weed out any deadwood in our squad and bring in some talents that would help us finish on a high come the end of the season“. This was what I started writing as the intro for the Aston Villa Away match. But something made me stop and say, you know what… don’t get your hopes up. That was a one-off thing. And rightly so, after that we drew to Villa (Villa deserved to win). Drew with Everton (Everton deserved to win), beat Montpellier (how did we manage that?), lose to Swansea at home (This would have never happened at Highbury) and lose to Olympiacos (Am I the only one seeing a pattern here?).

Now let me tell you newly joined Arsenal fans about how our beloved club was back then J and how it is now L – After that (and most importantly) what is our status now? More on that later.

THEN

NOW

We had quality players such as Robert Pires, Thierry Henry, Dennis Bergkamp, Patrick Vieira and dedicated players like Ray Parlour, Lauren, Fredrik Ljunberg, Jens Lehmann, Sol Campbell and Sylvian Wiltord to name a few. But neither set of players overlooked the other because the likes of Thierry Henry were always made to work and hustle by the hard men Tony Adams and vice versa. They never took their abilities for granted. They displayed real flair, effort, passion, belief and spirit (all the terms that Wenger talks of now about his current squad) by working for each other and being a real unit. They defined team chemistry. Back then, you’re either in or you’re out. If one of the squad player was tackled, he’d have his Gunner brothers came forth to question the tackler and defend his mate. Arsenal FC stood their ground together and fought. That my fellow fans, is why we had Victoria Concordia Crescit (Victory through Harmony).

We have quality players such as Cazorla, Podolski, Arteta, Wilshere, etc. but all the responsibilities are placed on the shoulders of these talents to magically make us win each match. Most of the rest of the lot just show up to make up the eleven whilst the others in the squad are just happy to wallop £60,000-70,000 a week and have a relaxed life and show up for training once a week. There is no team chemistry, no team bonding, there is no team! They are just a bunch of talented or special skilled individuals brought in together to somehow gel and create total football. Some of them are in North London for tourist purposes! And yet some of them manage to grow the grapes to come fight for more money, threaten to transfer to a rival. No man is bigger than a club, not you, not me, not RvP, not Wenger, not nobody!!

The aura that was around Arsene Wenger. The players I mentioned above wouldn’t even dare to call him by name. Such is the respect he demanded from them to the extent that even now after leaving our club and having retired, they still refer to him as “The Boss”. The Boss used to question these marquee talents even if they put up a good performance. Good wasn’t enough, le boss demanded great. He used to match the fierceness of Sir Alex Ferguson, who I know together made English football what it is today by having their Ali-Frazier moments.

It hurts to see someone I still look up to having to go through this near decade of mishaps. He is Mr. Football, his principles are divine. I would like to remember his legacy as the man on the left rather than the man at the right. Arsene Wenger will always be our best manager. The players need to back him up. I’d be uber grateful if he just asked me to be a water boy for Arsenal FC. Le Boss has now turned into a sympathetic father figure trying to cover the ears and save the feelings of his young squad from the media and what not. Sigh.

David Dein is a lifelong Arsenal fan who had personally bought in the likes of Patrick Vieira, Dennis Bergkamp, Thierry Henry from the grips of then footballing giants Inter Milan, AC Milan etc. He still lives in the new apartments built over the hallowed grounds of Highbury. His managerial role in the board was above par, representing Arsenal as part of the English FA Board and even beyond for FIFA. He asked what Wenger wanted and got what our club wanted as well. He orchestrated the Emirates switch over. And then he was thrown out because his ambitions for our club were higher. Our last trophy was under Dein’s reign as Director. Status then: DON’T MESS WITH US.

Ivan Gazidis is a very smart businessman brought in to join Stan Kroenke. However, both are non-football natives. And during their tenure, we have sold three club captains, a whole roster of talented players who were developed through our club’s resources and our (fans) hard earned money through tickets and merchandise just to be sold to our rivals and in the process strengthen them whilst weakening us. We have not won any trophies in this time, and again if someone tries to convince me by saying the Emirates cup is a trophy (which we haven’t won in recent times), then go watch golf or something. Status now: FEEDER CLUB, 50% DISCOUNTS THANKS TO THE BOSMAN CLAUSE!

Gone are the glory days when we celebrated in unison. Highbury was filled with happy faces; kids smiling because they just got to witness their favourite stars play the beautiful game in the beautiful way. The Arsenal way. We used to enjoy football. Watching an Arsenal game was the highlight of most of my weekends. A great match would motivate us to go and play on the street and fields emulating quick 1-2 passes with your mates and doing the latest Thierry Henry celebration style. Gone, gone are those days.

Nowadays, our stadium is filled with boos and jeers to our own side with the away fans having a ball, a goal or two even. This new Black Scarf Movement is about hardcore Arsenal fans making their voices heard. Thankfully it has all been peaceful. I was really interested at how the Arsenal fans have finally spoken out. Here is a sample of an Arsenal fan nicknamed ‘Bully’. After you listen to him, you’d call him a Legend. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4TJ5WG2qlM … Credit to the great work done by the folks at Arsenal Fan TV. Worth subscribing to!

Final message:

I believe Wenger has to take over a board position and also Alisher Usmanov along with David Dein (both of whom represent the Red and White Army) should join Le Boss and take over from Kroenke, Gazidis and Hill-Wood. I believe only one man can take over as our boss and I know he is the man for it.

ENTER:

TONY ADAMS aka MR. ARSENAL

The man will instil discipline and will give a sense of pride and strength back to our Arsenal badge. #TONY ADAMS FOR MANAGER. Oh by the way, just a heads up … I won’t be posting any match blogs till something is resolved with our club and our table position. This is my way of observing in silence hopefully the end of a bad decade of trophy-less fan hood and very soon usher in an era of goals, glory and hopefully trophies! Peace out!!! #STAY STRONG GUNNERS!! Join our facebook community http://www.facebook.com/gunnersfolife spread the word and show our solidarity by sticking together for the values of our club! With this I tear up saying CMON ARSENAL!! CMON U GUNNERZ!! I wish for the good ol’ days and also hoping our voices are heard ….